Revelation of Spirit: Direct Knowing in the Modern World
Ancient Way of Knowing in a Rational Age
Throughout my life, some of the most meaningful insights didn’t come from study or careful calculations, but from a sudden clarity that felt undeniable. In our modern age, we too often frame knowledge as something proven, documented, and verified through logic or science. Yet there exists another way of knowing, older, deeper, immediate. It is a direct revelation of spirit, an awareness that arises not through argument or intellect but through presence.
Today we see glimpses of it in the contemplative practices so many have turned to, mindfulness, meditation, breath-work, and embodied awareness.
Neuroscience has begun to map the patterns of the contemplative mind, while behavioral studies suggest that such practices provide measurable benefits across multiple cognitive domains—expanding not only how we think, but how we come to know.
Indigenous traditions have long held this understanding close. For them, revelation is not an abstract idea but a direct engagement with life. The sacred is not set apart but woven into every aspect of existence. To live in balance with the land, with community, with unseen forces, is to participate in revelation.
I have experienced this direct knowing in ways that is beyond explanation. In moments of reflection and practice, I feel wholly embraced, unmistakably held by something vast, living, and real. No words are spoken, yet the knowing is unmistakable: I am not separate. I belong to an unbroken fabric of life. Such revelations do not fade; they settle quietly within me, shaping how I walk in the world.
Dreams, visions, ceremony, these are not curiosities but essential means of orientation. They remind us that spirit is not hidden; it is everywhere, awaiting our attention. This reminds us of the importance of paying attention to and valuing the symbolic, spiritual, and interconnected aspects of life.
Intuition, like revelation, is also a form of knowing that resists analytical or logical deduction. Just as revelation opens us to knowledge that feels gifted from beyond, intuition is the immediate recognition of a reality already present within. Both are experiential, rooted in presence, where the individual feels an intimate connection between self and Spirit. In this way, intuition serves as a companion to revelation, an inner compass that orients us toward what resonates as deeply true, even when reason has yet to catch up.
The clash between scientific materialism and direct knowing is not as significant as it seems. Both pursue truth, though in different languages. Science charts the measurable. Spirit reveals the immeasurable. Together they offer a more complete picture of reality, one that honors both the clarity of intellect and the mystery of presence.
To embrace revelation of spirit in the modern world is to reclaim a way of knowing that is not bound by dogma or doubt. It is to step beyond separation, between mind and body, matter and spirit, self and world, and discover again the wholeness that has always been here.
"To embrace revelation of spirit is to reclaim a way of knowing not bound by dogma or doubt"
The name “CUYA” carries with it both history and vision. Rooted in our origins as the Cuyamungue Institute, it now also serves as an acronym — C.U.Y.A. — a guiding symbol that unites our mission:
C — Consciousness: The field of shared awareness that arises in Collective Presence, where the “We” awakens beyond the “I” – moving from the “Me to the We.”
U — Unity: Our alignment with the Cycles of Nature and the rhythms of the cosmos, reminding us that we are woven into a greater fabric of reality. This sense of unity reminds us that our awareness is the shared consciousness that connects all living beings.
Y — Your Awakening: The inner journey of Embodiment and Wisdom, where through direct experience the body remembers. At the CUYA Institute, this awakening is nurtured through Ritual Body Postures and ecstatic trance, where the body itself becomes the doorway to wisdom, presence, and transformation.
A — Ancestral Wisdom: Roots. Our connection to Sacred Lineage, honoring those who walked before us and rooting us in belonging and continuity. Our founder, anthropologist Felicitas D. Goodman looked to some of the oldest, most authentic ancestral records we have — the world’s collection of early and indigenous art — and decoded selected artifacts as embodied “ritual instructions.”